Guys, I have noticed TV channels such as NDTV and CNN IBN are getting more and more biased in their reporting in the name of free speech. Even in print media if the perpetrators of any atrocity is a minority person they will try to hide the fact. For eg in a report on some scandal in a Christian organisation in say Kerala they will write that in such a such an `Ashram` a child was abused, later, maybe at the bottom of the news item itself, we will come to know the name of the perv is John or Alex or something! For a while (or not if they do not clarify details) you will think this is happening in a Hindu organisation!

Or here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZFkatTsAw
Barkha Dutt haranguing Rahul Easwar on why Sabarimala does not allow women aged 10-50 to have darshan. Would she dare question a mullah why women are allowed in mosques ? NOT! Probably that would mean riots or worse!

In the late 80's and early 90's when private TV channels were just starting out, we used to watch NDTV avidly , I dont remember this kind of sensationalist reporting. Prannoy Roy and the late Appan Menon provided a genteel kind of world view - fast forward to Kargil and Barkha Dutts defining moment of glory interviewing the troops on the frontline (even here there is a controversy reg the TV crews giving away the location of our troops to enemy fire) and the tone changes!

So, what do you think ? Is it because Hindus are the majority and we must give, give, give always to our younger siblings the minorities and put up ? Is it because persons like Barkha and even Arundhati Roy can aim cheap shots at Hinduism and make a name without any cost to themselves (in the case of heroes like Nelson Mandela and even the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner, I would say they walked the talk, braving prison and maybe torture for their beliefs, here there is absolutely no danger from our useless government!) ? Do they do it deliberately to provoke and create strife in the country (Arundhatis speech is certainly provocative to an Indian where she accuses the Indian state of terrorising all but the Hindu)? I do not mind at all if the person criticising Hinduism is not a Hindu but do we ever see any criticism about say treatment of women in Islam by any Muslim or the love of Christian `fathers` and `mothers` for each other by a Christian in Indian media? Never. All seems very one sided - i.e. Hinduism bashing all the time!

I think each television is supporting a political party; be it NDTV or Jaya TV(of course). So, they are mainly concentration on getting popularity for respective parties.
Also, I wouldnt worry too much about Ms Dutt if I were you. Same goes even with a political party or Ms Roy.

The media today is controlled by the congress and the congress in anti-hindu and the news channels beam things which the congress wants.So there is no freedom of press and the congress to please its minority votes has instructed all the news channel to show anti hindu view.

The congress and the news channels know that hindus are peace loving people and to top it all there is no unity amongst themselves,the Shiv-sena BJP and the other so called hindu parties are busy in their old world and dont care about hindus at all.

Guys, I have noticed TV channels such as NDTV and CNN IBN are getting more and more biased in their reporting in the name of free speech. Even in print media if the perpetrators of any atrocity is a minority person they will try to hide the fact. For eg in a report on some scandal in a Christian organisation in say Kerala they will write that in such a such an `Ashram` a child was abused, later, maybe at the bottom of the news item itself, we will come to know the name of the perv is John or Alex or something! For a while (or not if they do not clarify details) you will think this is happening in a Hindu organisation!

Or here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZFkatTsAw
Barkha Dutt haranguing Rahul Easwar on why Sabarimala does not allow women aged 10-50 to have darshan. Would she dare question a mullah why women are allowed in mosques ? NOT! Probably that would mean riots or worse!

In the late 80's and early 90's when private TV channels were just starting out, we used to watch NDTV avidly , I dont remember this kind of sensationalist reporting. Prannoy Roy and the late Appan Menon provided a genteel kind of world view - fast forward to Kargil and Barkha Dutts defining moment of glory interviewing the troops on the frontline (even here there is a controversy reg the TV crews giving away the location of our troops to enemy fire) and the tone changes!

So, what do you think ? Is it because Hindus are the majority and we must give, give, give always to our younger siblings the minorities and put up ? Is it because persons like Barkha and even Arundhati Roy can aim cheap shots at Hinduism and make a name without any cost to themselves (in the case of heroes like Nelson Mandela and even the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner, I would say they walked the talk, braving prison and maybe torture for their beliefs, here there is absolutely no danger from our useless government!) ? Do they do it deliberately to provoke and create strife in the country (Arundhatis speech is certainly provocative to an Indian where she accuses the Indian state of terrorising all but the Hindu)? I do not mind at all if the person criticising Hinduism is not a Hindu but do we ever see any criticism about say treatment of women in Islam by any Muslim or the love of Christian `fathers` and `mothers` for each other by a Christian in Indian media? Never. All seems very one sided - i.e. Hinduism bashing all the time!

Good night!

Well, this has been discussed here to death... but I'm still not convinced that indian media is, per se, against hindus. As far as Barkha Dutt is concerned, I disagree with her on many issues and I remember her several times taking stand against mullah hardliner also... I watch several of ndtv shows regularly... and I feel that just because they give dissenters a space to speak doesn't mean that they support him... Almost everyone on NDTV disagreed with Arundhati...

Arundhati is a different breed..we are discussing her in a separate thread... And you brought Nelson Mandela up... no one had, in history, has given there aggressors as much importance and respect as Mandela... His Truth and reconciliation approach is historical.... he'd have been ridiculed by many people here.

And who is not criticizing Islam... has Islam been ever ridiculed this much in history... majority always faces more wrath... here in US, christians feel they are targeted, in pakistan muslims feel that media is against them and in India hindus feel media s against them... you can see the pattern world over and judge yourself.

__________________I am here because I am nowhere else. But, am I there where I wanted to be?

Agree with ashdoc, Hindus are the ones who kick other Hindus and nowadays there seems to be a particular traitor type journo/author who writes for western audience.

Rakhi, there is no channel that supports BJP right, so you cannot say that every channel supports particular party ?

Swami, agree with you ALL channels are paid and owned by kaangress, with all the Bofors, 2G, CWG, etc etc moolah, pachaas-saath saal se loot rahe hain. Read somewhere recently that smkrishna's son-in-law footed the hotel bill for the karnataka rebels. So plenty more there to get the news they want to be shown.

Chitrala, I disgree with you. rop can NEVER be criticised in our country. Please give me one example where rop has been criticised by anyone in the media, it is our holy cow and rakshasa rolled into one!

Coming to last one by Badriprasad, now that intrigues me because what happened to me recently! There is a forward that keeps doing the rounds as well as some youtube video that claims that Indian media is owned/controlled by Xtian powers which I never took seriously. In a national daily where I post comments sometimes 2 of my comments along with the one I had replied to disappeared without reason. Even though this is a national newspaper, its online avatar is a yellow rag with titles like `sex mantra` on the Home Page; nothing wrong with that but takes away from the seriousness of a supposedly national-level daily. I think you know which news paper!

Ok, so the first comment that disappeared had Archbishop Desmond Tutu`s famous quote 'When the colonialists came they had bible in hand, they asked us to pray with eyes closed, when we opened our eyes we had the bible they had the land`. The point I wanted to make in that post was that Xtianity has had a torrid and violent past like all Abrahaimic religions. Second comment, to an obvious spammer who was extolling `Path of Peace` and who said that Xtians are leaving in Europe coz they do not really understand etc etc `Peace` being a keyword I pick up on. My reply to this one was that he should not be complacent and quoted an al jazeera report on how rop is losing to Xtianity and how areas are targeted (called zones, very industrial and business like!) with large population that is both poor and illiterate, condition satisfied by India and Africa!

Wll be testing this hypothesis further! Thanks all you guys for the replies!

Rakhi, there is no channel that supports BJP right, so you cannot say that every channel supports particular party ?

Parijataka, do you mind if I call you pari?

I didnt mean to say that every channel has support from one particular political party. I mean to say that, more often than not, ALL the channels support one party or the other. This doenst mean that NDTV doesnt take a stand on a few things. As far as my knowledge goes, everyone in NDTV criticized Ms Roy for the audacity she had displaced.

Agree with ashdoc, Hindus are the ones who kick other Hindus and nowadays there seems to be a particular traitor type journo/author who writes for western audience.

Rakhi, there is no channel that supports BJP right, so you cannot say that every channel supports particular party ?

Swami, agree with you ALL channels are paid and owned by kaangress, with all the Bofors, 2G, CWG, etc etc moolah, pachaas-saath saal se loot rahe hain. Read somewhere recently that smkrishna's son-in-law footed the hotel bill for the karnataka rebels. So plenty more there to get the news they want to be shown. more even more.. ahhh..I'm having headache with so much eyerollings

Chitrala, I disgree with you. rop can NEVER be criticised in our country. Please give me one example where rop has been criticised by anyone in the media, it is our holy cow and rakshasa rolled into one!

I can give you plenty.... lemme offer you some... wiill post more in leisure.

The rioters say that nobody can criticise any aspect of the Prophet's life.

Why?

There's no shortage of books and articles criticising Jesus, suggesting that he might have been secretly married (as in The DaVinci Code), arguing that the resurrection was a hoax or that Mary was never a virgin.

Similarly, would mainstream Hindus be offended if somebody wrote that Hindu mythology features practices that we would find abhorrent today: one wife for five husbands as in the Mahabharat, the compulsive philandering of Krishna or the appalling mistreatment of Sita (the agni pariksha etc)?

Some Hindu extremists may protest but I doubt if they would get very far with their objections. The community, as a whole, would shrug its shoulders and many Hindus will agree with the critics.

And yet, it is an article of faith with Muslims — even moderate ones — that the Prophet's life is beyond reproach.

Does this make any sense?

Three: It is now clear that the liberal society has been suckered into relaxing its standards for free speech by militant Islamists.

Let's take the most obvious example. Every liberal I know is outraged by the attacks on M.F. Husain. Why shouldn't he paint nude Saraswatis? That's his right. If people are offended by the paintings, they shouldn't see them. So far, so good. But now imagine that Husain had painted an extremely reverential portrait of the Prophet. (Never mind cartoons, nude pictures etc.)

There would have been riots. And even secular liberals would not have supported him.

We would have said: Islam prohibits any visual representation of the Prophet so Husain has committed a great crime.

But so what if Muslims cannot visually represent their Prophet? Why should non-Muslims be bound by their religious edicts? Why should non-believing Muslims be forced by liberal society to obey the restrictions of their religion?

He blabbers on...

2. Writer : Khushwant Singh
Occupation: sex, scotch and more sex and more liquor
Character: Not even an iota of character, he has, irreligious, irreverent, hindu-hater, sickular, pseudo-liberalLinkwa:

Quote:

Though by definition (a kafir), I don’t believe in God, satan, angels, devils, heaven or hell, I feel hurt and angry because I am emotionally and rationally bothered by the sorry plight of Muslims today. I find Naik’s pronouncements somewhat juvenile.
They seldom rise above the level of undergraduate college debates, where contestants vie with each other to score brownie points. I will deal with only four of the twenty topics he deals with — two of minor and two of major importance. Why is eating pigmeat forbidden in Islam? Dr Naik tells us that the "pig is one of the filthiest animals on earth."

Agreed, it eats garbage, including human and animal excreta. He further adds, “The pig is the most shameless animal on the face of the earth. It is the only animal that invites its friends to have sex with its mate" I admit I was not aware of this swinish aberration. He goes on to list 70 different types of diseases caused by eating pigmeat. He does not tell us why the vast majority of non-Muslims, non-vegetarians of the world relish pigmeat in different forms: ham, bacon, pork, sausages, salami etc.

Many Pacific island economies depend on breeding pigs. I for one have not heard of great epidemics caused by consumption of pig meat. Why is alcohol forbidden to Muslims? Actually, what is forbidden by the Quran is drunkenness, not drinking. However, Dr Naik construes it to be a sin.

He says, “Alcohol has been the scourge of human society, since time immemorial. It costs enormous human lives and terrible misery to millions throughout the world."

He lists 19 diseases, including eczema, caused by intake of liquor. One does not have to quote the scriptures to prove that excessive drinking ruins one’s health, impoverishes families, leads to bad behaviour and crime. It is plain common sense. People all over the world overdo it and suffer. Those who drink within limits enjoy it. I have been drinking for 70 years. I have not been drunk even once in my life, never fallen ill nor offended anyone.

I am 94 and still drink everyday. My role model is Asadullah Khan Ghalib. He drank every evening and alone. I look forward to my sundowners. For me and for millions of others, drinking has nothing to do with religion. Let us see what Dr Naik has to say about two more serious subjects: polygamy and hijab (veil).

“The Quran is the only religious book on the face of this earth that contains the phrase "marry only one," he asserts. And explains the verse on the subject "marry women of your choice, two, three or four; but only fear that ye shall not be able to do justice (with them), then only one". And since "ye are never able to be fair and just as between women. Therefore, the verdict is in favour of one wife at a time. "Hindus are more polygamous than Muslims," writes Dr Naik.
There are more women than men in the world; so what are women who can’t find unmarried men do except become co-wives of married men? Or become “public property?” So goes the learned doctor’s argument.

He does not deign to deal with the situation as it exists today. Every other religion other than Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism now forbids men from having more than one wife at a time.

Muslims are the sole exception though only a miniscule minority, mainly Arabs, have multiple wives. Apply for a visa to some country like Indonesia and Malaysia and you will have to fill a column naming up to four wives accompanying you. The answer to the problem of women out-numbering men is not polygamy, it is freedom to engage in extra-marital relation or have them staying single. It is better than having a harem.

Dr Naik is in favour of women wearing burqas from head to foot, girls not going to mixed schools or colleges, nor going into professional institutions in which they have to expose their faces etc. This amounts to denying them, equal rights with men. In my view, shared by all my Muslim friends, burqa is the single most reprehensible cause for keeping Muslims backward (it is synonymous to jehalat — ignorance and backwardness). The sooner it is abolished, the better. He castigates the western society in no uncertain terms: “Western talk of women’s liberalisation is nothing but a disguised form of exploitation of her body, degradation of her soul and deprivation of her honour.

“Western society claims to have uplifted women. On the contrary, it has actually degraded them to the status of concubines, mistresses, and society butterflies who are mere tools in the hands of pleasure seekers and sex marketers….” All I can say in reply is “Dr. Naik, you know next to nothing about the Western society and are talking through your skull cap. People like you are making the Muslims lag behind other communities.”

God business

Ahmed and Hamid are both beggars in Great Britain. Ahmed drives a Mercedes, lives in a mortgage-free house and has a lot of money to spend. Hamid only brings in £ 2 or £ 3 a day. Hamid asks Ahmed how he manages to bring home a suitcase full of £10 notes everyday. Ahmed says, “Look at your sign.”

It says, “I have no work, a wife and seven kids to support.” Britons who see that do not feel as if they have accomplished anything by giving you money. You will still have no job and a large family. Now look at my sign. So Hamid looks and Ahmed’s sign reads: “I need only another $10 to move to Pakistan.”

I think values clash. You have to take a very clear position. It doesn’t have to be a radical position, but it should be a clear position. My journey of coming out of Islam simply demonstrates that it is possible for a Muslim individual to change his or her mind. And I have to make it very clear, and in the language of the Enlightenment, in accessible language – this is the moral framework my parents gave me, here’s why I left it, and here’s the new moral framework that I’ve adopted. If you get too woolly about it, the message gets lost. And that benefits only the fundamentalists, because they are very clear in their standpoint and in spreading Islam – they tell you this is halaal, this is haraam, this is forbidden, you should pray five times a day, you should combat the infidels, and if they don’t convert willingly then kill them or avoid them. There are all sorts of stages for apostates. This is how you should treat women and gay people. They are very explicit about what Islam tells you to do. And you can’t take drones and shoot ideas out of people’s heads. What you can do is take a very clear position and explain to people why those [other] values are wrong and their consequences, which are clear today.

Do you see the spread of Islam as a problem?I see it today as the greatest problem in history. Even if people don’t resort to terror and violence, still it’s a closing of the Muslim mind. A closing of the human mind. Because Islam doesn’t allow you to think for yourself. You follow a man who tells you this is halaal and this is haraam. Islam also persuades you to invest in the hereafter, in life after death. I think that’s bad for people in general, even if they don’t become violent. The question that was posed in the first panel [at the JLF called Conspiracy, that I missed] and I couldn’t answer, I wanted to say – it’s much better to come with a theology of life, a theology that helps you invest in life here on earth. And if you want to know why the Muslim world is lagging behind [the rest], it’s because of this investment in the hereafter.

She goes on ranting as well... what a sicko!

__________________I am here because I am nowhere else. But, am I there where I wanted to be?

the Darul Ujloom Madrassa, set up in 1992 by three maulvis of the Barelvi sect, is supposed to house 150 poor Muslim children and provide them with shelter, education and food. Far from doing this though, in a disturbing twist, TEHELKA found that the Darul Ujloom Madrassa was illegally sending its minor children out to work harrowing twelve hour shifts at nearby factories and sweatshops.

....Saddam, 12, from Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh was sent to the Tartul Quran Jamia Madrassa (near Batla House) four years ago. The Tartul Madrassa is apparently affiliated to the Deobandi sect. At this madrassa, Saddam attends classes on the Shariat for two hours every Sunday. The rest of the week, he works in a zari factory from 7 am till 12 midnight. When Saddam first started working, he complained about the work.

“The seth then told me to take off my clothes and raped me,” says he. When he tried to tell Maulvi Shah Ahmed Noorani, his supposed caretaker, about it, the maulvi laughed it off. “Maza aaya (did you enjoy it)?” he asked.

Saddam copes with his trauma by sniffing liquid shoe polish, a substance commonly abused by boys on the street. “It gives me relief,” Saddam says. “I get energy from it.” He hasn’t been home even once: it is difficult to do that on pocket money of Rs. 50 a week, which is all he gets for working 17 hours a day, six days a week. He tried to run away from the factory once but was chased, caught and chained for the next two days. He says he will try to escape again.....

..The only way I can come back to India, perhaps, is if the BJP comes to power at the Centre. Or maybe, Mayawati. This government has no spine. Their hands are tied........

But I really began to study spiritual texts when I was 19. Because of what I had been through, because I lost my mother, because I was sent away, I used to have terrible nightmares when I was about 14 or 15. All of this stopped when I was 19. I had a guru called Mohammad Ishaq— I studied the holy texts with him for two years. I also read and discussed the Gita and Upanishads and Puranas with Mankeshwar, who had become an ascetic by then. After he left for the Himalayas, I carried on studying for years afterwards. All this made me completely calm. I have never had dreams or nightmares ever again. Later, in Hyderabad, in 1968, Dr Ram Manohar Lohia suggested I paint the Ramayana. I was completely broke, but I painted 150 canvases over eight years. I read both the Valmiki and Tulsidas Ramayana (the first is much more sensual) and invited priests from Benaras to clarify and discuss the nuances with me. When I was doing this, some conservative Muslims told me, why don’t you paint on Islamic themes? I said, does Islam have the same tolerance? If you get even the calligraphy wrong, they can tear down a screen. I’ve painted hundreds of Ganeshas in my lifetime — it is such a delightful form. I always paint a Ganesha before I begin on any large work. I also love the iconography of Shiva. The Nataraj — one of the most complex forms in the world — has evolved over thousands of years and, almost like an Einstein equation, it is the result of deep philosophical and mathematical calculations about the nature of the cosmos and physical reality. When my daughter, Raeesa wanted to get married, she did not want any ceremonies, so I drew a card announcing her marriage and sent it to relatives across the world. On the card, I had painted Parvati sitting on Shiva’s thigh, with his hand on her breast — the first marriage in the cosmos. Nudity, in Hindu culture, is a metaphor for purity. Would I insult that which I feel so close to? I come from the Suleimani community, a sub-sect of the Shias, and we have many affinities with Hindus, including the idea of reincarnation. As cultures, it is Judaism and Christianity that are emotionally more distant. But it is impossible to discuss all this with those who oppose me. Talk to them about Khajuraho, they will tell you its sculpture was built to encourage population growth and has outgrown its utility! (laughs) It is people in the villages who understand the sensual, living, evolving nature of Hindu gods. They just put orange paint on a rock, and it comes to stand for Hanuman.

As ironies go, it probably doesn’t get any better than this. A panic-stricken Marxist government bundling up a feminist Muslim writer in the swathes of a protective black burqa and parceling her off to a state ruled by the BJP — a party that the Left would otherwise have you believe is full of religious bigots....

Have we been less hypocritical than our political leaders? Or have our positions, too, been coloured by prejudice?

Do we show the same anger for the ‘liberal’ politicians who push a writer out of her home as we do for the goons who vandalised the fine arts faculty in a university in Gujarat? Does a twisted notion of secularism make us respond to censorship differently when it applies to the Hindu majority? We are quick to condemn the lunatics who wield trishuls and wear saffron. But isn’t it time that the skull-capped and long-bearded version of fanaticism and hooliganism receives our contempt in exactly the same measure?

"They want to turn Kerala into a Muslim-majority state in 20 years. They are using money and other inducements to convert people to Islam. They even marry women from outside their community in order to increase the Muslim population."

__________________I am here because I am nowhere else. But, am I there where I wanted to be?

Chitrala, thank you very much ! I always liked Khushwant Singh ! I will read up the the `linkwa`s you have provided and please post more when you have the time!

Examples are plenty Pari.... tai(man! is your name difficult to remember!)

I don't blame you... it is very easy to get these impressions, partly because of the nature of the media(the fourth column and anti establishment, anti majority, so a little left and all that) partly because right and majority leaders want it to paint like that and partly because of some stupid journos, who kind of follow a stereotype to be included in the 'circle' even if it belies their convictions.

Of course, hinduism takes more flak than Islam, because it is majority ... in US or europe it is christianity which has to bear the brunt... they are even worse with their criticism... a catholic priest has become a synonym for a pedophile...

And above all, if criticism is justified, then why not take it, you would not deny that hinduism also needs an introspection... there are many customs which are irrelevant and disgusting.

__________________I am here because I am nowhere else. But, am I there where I wanted to be?

Absolutely correct, Chitrala ji! With the left leaning tendency of MSM in general, hinduism being majority religion, etc as you mention, we could expect this kind of attention from media, but you know it gets over the top sometimes. This seems to me a fairly recent phenomenon, I guess we could call it the globalisation of Indian media (or should I say Americanisation ?). tq again for the links!